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Instant Vortex Plus Asparagus (air fryer)

Use your Instant Vortex Plus to make the most perfect and delicious asparagus. It’s quick, easy, and my new favorite way to make asparagus.

The people who make your favorite pressure cooker – the Instant Pot, have a new air fryer called the Instant Vortex Plus. While most traditional air fryers use a basket style, the Vortex Plus has a door the opens with positions for trays. Similar to a toaster oven. It also has a rotisserie and a “frying” basket. But we’ll get into all those accessories in other recipes. For now, let’s focus on making some perfectly “roasted” air fryer asparagus.

Season Asparagus just with salt and pepper

There’s certainly many ways in which you can season asparagus. I’ve enjoyed a number of asparagus recipes over the years. Everything from bacon wrapped asparagus, Parmesan garlic asparagus, ranch seasoning and more. And you know what? You can use all those seasonings and styles too. But this recipe will give you the very basic, perfect air fryer asparagus in your Instant Vortex Plus – oil, salt and just a little pepper.

Thick or thin asparagus?

Often times we don’t have a choice of thick or thin asparagus. Thinner sized asparagus simply means it didn’t grow as robust or as vigorous as it normally should. That doesn’t mean it’s bad by any means. If the asparagus is on the thinner size, we’ll want to start checking for doneness anytime after the 4-5 minute mark. If the asparagus is extra thick, which can happen too, we’ll keep in in the air fryer for an axtra minute or so – closer to 8-10 minutes. But for most standard sizes asparagus stalks, we’ll get that “roasted” perfection in about 6-8 minutes.

Don’t use aerosol cooking spray

Our asparagus recipe will need some oil. Not a lot, just enough to coat the asparagus spears. When air frying, it’s important not to use aerosol cooking spray. Use regular vegetable or olive oil. Or, you can now buy spray oils with no propellants. It will say right on the bottle “no propellants” or “safe for air fryers”. There’s also a number or oil spritzer bottles available which you can fill up with your favorite oil and it will perfectly spritz the oil on your food for air frying.

Turn asparagus once during air frying

Air frying in your Vortex Plus, or any traditional air fryer works by using high speed circulating air. And although the heated air will indeed get underneath the tray when cooking, you’ll still want to give those spears a turn. Your Vortex Plus will beep at around the halfway mark to let you know it’s time to turn the food.